This is the moment a dad grabs his sleeping child and storms out of the room to rescue his wife when their home begins shaking violently due to a 6.2-magnitude earthquake.

A surveillance camera video recorded the dad lying next to the baby on an improvised bed on the floor of their family's house in Jishishan, in Gansu province, China, on the night of December 18.

But just before the earthquake struck, the dad, supposedly having felt the ground's vibrations, put his smartphone down and paused for several moments until he saw the whole living room begin to shake.

He then grabbed the sleeping baby and rushed to the bathroom to find his wife, in order to find shelter for all three of them.

The wife Ms Wang said: 'I was very scared at the time. It was the first time I felt that death was so close to me.

'I was particularly moved when I saw my husband holding the child and looking for me immediately.'

The Gansu province, one of the country's poorest regions, was struck by the devastating earthquake shortly before midnight.

The shock happened about 100 kilometres (62 miles) southwest of the Chinese city of Lanzhou, near the Gansu-Qinghai border.

At least 127 people were killed and hundreds were injured, with thousands of mud houses being brought down in remote villages.